Fear and Freedom: Commencement Address at Grove City College

President Combee, Members of the Board of Trustees, relieved and
exhausted faculty; parents whose car trunks are loaded down with
books, CDs, old sneakers, half-eaten bags of potato chips, dirty
gym clothes, and who knows what else; grandmothers who are g e
tting their hankies ready; lit- tle brothers and sisters who
already are asking, "Is that man about finished?"; friends, invited
guests, and most of all, distinguished, educated, and happy
graduates: thank you very much for the honor of this degree and of
addressing you on this important day. This is my third visit to
Grove City College. The last time was when Jerry Combee was inaugu-
rated as president of this institution. It's very nice to be back.
Earlier I was thinking that I appeared rather eminent we a ring
this academic gown. But then when we were parading in here, I heard
someone say as I passed by, "Oh, look, there's Mrs. Doubtfire." As
you know, one of the jobs of a commencement speaker is to give
advice. I don't know why you graduates should take m y advice when
my own children don't, but advice you shall get. And the first
piece of advice is, don't listen to commencement speakers. Why?
Because if you surveyed all the commencement addresses being given
this spring on our nation's campuses, you would b e dismayed by the
elitist, multicultural, politically correct effluvia that is
flowing forth over the graduates. At some of this country's most
august colleges and universi- ties, you would hear discourses on
classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, anti-v i visectionism, Hil-
laryism., American Nativism, and, as one person put it, "every ism
that ever wasm." The only ism that doesn't seem rampant at many of
our universities and universities is honest intellectualism. In
clear contrast, Grove City truly is an intellectual grove on the
academic landscape. * Here you were educated, not indoctrinated. *
Here you were expected to face the future as individuals, not as
victims. * Here you gained the confidence that comes from
accomplishment, not the false secu- rit y that comes from
entitlement. * Here your education was based on the timeless
precepts of Western civilization, not on some untested concept of
contrived diversity that is, in fact, ideological conform- ity.
Graduates, if you emulate the independence and integrity of this
unique institution, you will do well and you will go far.

D r. Feulner is President of The Heritage Foundation. He delivered
this speech as the Commencement Address at Grove City College,
Grove City, Pennsylvania, on May 14, 1994, when he w as awarded the
honorary degree of Doctor of Literature. ISSN 0272-1155. 01994 by
Ile Heritage Foundation.

At a recent meeting, I ran into a previous graduate of Grove
City, Dr. Alejandro Chafuen, the president of an economic research
foundation. He told me of the many Grovers who are Argentin- ean
and what great contributions they are now making to the Argentine
renewal. A congressman, professors, corporate leaders-they are
renewing Argentina. I believe you here will help renew America.

I've given a goo d deal of thought to what I should discuss with
you today. You might expect someone from a think tank in Washington
to talk about matters academic, intellectual, or political.
Instead, I've decided to talk about an emotion that is crippling
many Americans . I see evidence of it daily in the studies that
cross my desk, in the newspapers and journals that fill my in-box,
in the regulations and legislation put forth by government
busybodies at all levels. I am talking about the basic fear of
freedom. It is iro n ic that in this age, which has produced
So1zhenitsyn and other great consciences who sacrificed and
suffered for freedom, many in our own country fear it. They fear
the free will that God gave us. They fear the personal
responsibility that de- mocracy req u ires. And so I want to relate
three seemingly random, everyday incidents from the newspapers and
then explain how they relate to your success as you leave this
campus. Item 1. 1 know Grove City has a strong elementary education
program, so some of you are prob- ably familiar with the children's
book Tootle the Train. As you may recall, Tootle initially is a
less than ambitious young train, but through endeavor and effort he
becomes one of the most famous Flyers in the land. A professor at a
teachers colleg e in the Midwest told her students that the moral
of this book should be discouraged. Do you know why? Because it
teaches the lesson that if you work hard you'll make it. Of course,
according to her, in this closed, oppressive society called
America, we ar e misleading our children if we teach them that hard
work will bring accomplish- ment.

As Ross Perot says, hold that thought. Item 2. A pilot named
Edward Cleveland and the company he worked for had a record of
unsafe flying when they were hired to film a television commercial.
Mr. Cleveland took the front seat out of his Piper Sup@r Cub
airplane and installed a rear-facing camera in its place. The
cameraman squeezed behind the camera with his back covering the
instrument panel and the front window. Mr. Cl e veland was then
going to fly the airplane from the rear seat. The plane crashed
before ever getting off the runway. Mr. Cleveland's lawyer sued the
Piper Air- craft Company and won over a million dollars. You see,
they argued that the plane's design was d e - fective on the basis
that it was impossible to see out the front window while flying
from the back seat. Item 3. During one of the 1992 presidential
debates-and the term debate is used very loosely- a young man with
a ponytail stood up to ask a question of the candidates. He said,
"We are your children, we have our needs. What will you do to take
care of us-to take care of our needs?" All three candidates
predictably fell all over themselves explaining what they would do
for this young man. My friend and Heritage Foundation colleague
Bill Bennett commented about this episode: "Wouldn't it have been
refreshing," he said, "wouldn't it have been great if any one of
them had said, 'Just a minute. Get a life. I'm not your father.
This is America. This is a do- it-yourself society. I'm only
running for the head of the government... satisfy your own needs.
See a minister, see a priest, see your wife. Take care of yourself,
man; get a hold of yourself."'

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Now, what all these items have in common is that they evi dence
a fear of the personal responsibil- ity upon which freedom is
predicated. Instead, everything becomes a matter of rights,
entitlements, or blame-to the detriment of others' rights and to
the abandonment of the individual's account- ability for his o wn
life. A result unachieved becomes a right denied. A desire
unfulfilled becomes an entitlement due.

It is a terrible, debilitating curse to live your life more
concerned about your rights than your op- portunities, more
preoccupied with what is owed you rather than what you owe others,
more ab- sorbed with placing blame than in accepting
responsibility. These expectations are morally poisonous to the
very premises upon which our Founding Fathers established the
nation. When I was in college, speakers on c ampus frequently
quoted Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the great hu- manitarian who founded
a hospital and worked in Africa for many years. You don't hear Dr.
Schweitzer quoted much on campuses any more. No wonder. He
emphasized the spiritual and the in- dividual . He believed that,
"Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment and
learn again to exercise his free will-his personal responsibility
in the realm of faith and morals." And I would add that personal
responsibility is necessary in the realm n ot only of faith and
morals but of government. Now these ideas are not especially
popular in our culture today. And yet there are oases where the
traditional tenets of Western civilization and the great American
experiment are valued. This school is one o f those oases. It has
rejected the idea that political, ideological, and philosophical
agendas should supersede objective truth as the goal of liberal
learning. Let me remind you of the great advantage this has given
you as graduates of Grove City College. In preparation for these
remarks, I did a little background check on you, the Grove City
student body. You were described to me as being highly motivated
and self-disciplined. You were described as believing in
traditional values and being fainily-oriente d . Those personal
qualities drew you to this campus. And if you look at the research,
you will find those qualities are major determinants of personal
happiness. You have not been made to feel fearful, victimized, or
angry as so many on other campuses have . You will do well because
the free are more successful and happy than the fearful. Someone
said that happiness is 75 percent courage, and I believe that. This
college, by the very fact it doesn't accept government money,
embodies it. I also learned someth i ng else about you. I was told
that you are tired of hearing doom and gloom. In certain media and
academic circles, this attitude would immediately mark you as
insensitive to America's problems. These are the same people who,
if given the choice between tw o evils, would take both. But to me
it marks you as young people more focused on the future than on the
past, which is the way it should be. It marks you as young people
who want to get on with your lives and contribute to society in a
positive way. You ar e right not to become burdened with doom and
gloom. Mark Twain as an old man said that he had had lots of
troubles in his life, most of which never hap- pened. The Economist
magazine ran an article a while back about the extrapolation of bad
news. It said, for example, that if you want to scare the people of
Chicago about their rising murder rate, start with 1988, then draw
a line through 1990, when the city had a record number of murders.
Just con- tinue the line upward and it will show that in time there
will be more people annually murdered in Chicago than there are
people who live there. As I've seen so often in Washington, if you
torture the facts long enough they can prove anything.

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What I came to say to you today is this: You came to this
college with the enduring values in- stilled by your parents,
grandparents, family, and others who cared about you. You are
leaving this college with an education and an unmatched freedom of
opportunity. Do not fear. Certainly, you have anxieties about your
caree r and your future. But your ability, your degree, and the
philosophy of the school awarding it are a potent combination. You
have been given the freedom that knowl- edge bestows and an
understanding of the personal responsibility that freedom demands.
What a marvelous preparation for an accomplished, noble life! In
closing, just let me say that as you go your separate ways into the
world, like the ancient Jews of the Diaspora, your challenge is not
only to keep alive but to spread the beliefs that were made real to
you at Grove City College. I believe in what you can accomplish. I
believe in what you value. I believe in you. And now, you are ready
to show the world that you believe in yourselves. My warmest
congratulations and heartfelt best wishes to each o f you.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) says it's "a great way to start the day for any conservative who wants to get America back on track."

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